This research explores how marketing managers can avoid the so-called false consensus effect—the egocentric tendency to project personal preferences onto consumers. Two pilot studies were conducted to provide evidence for the managerial importance of this research question and to explore how marketing managers attempt to avoid false consensus effects in practice. The results suggest that the debiasing tactic most frequently used by marketers is to suppress their personal preferences when predicting consumer preferences. Four subsequent studies show that, ironically, this debiasing tactic can backfire and increase managers’ susceptibility to the false consensus effect. Specifically, the results suggest that these backfire effects are most likely to occur for managers with a low level of preference certainty. In contrast, the results imply that preference suppression does not backfire but instead decreases false consensus effects for managers with a high level of preference certainty. Finally, the studies explore the mechanism behind these results and show how managers can ultimately avoid false consensus effects—regardless of their level of preference certainty and without risking backfire effects.
EXPRESS: Marketers Project Their Personal Preferences onto Consumers: Overcoming the Threat of Egocentric Decision Making
